


do it once again

by ok_thanks



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Animal crossing as a form of coping, M/M, Slow Burn, doing a puzzle with ur bro is actually something that can be so personal, eventually.. itll happen!, trade carts back to the flyers!!! i am begging you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 10:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22489780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ok_thanks/pseuds/ok_thanks
Summary: To them, Claude’s role to this team is fixed. They could never imagine having him ripped from his team, from his city, his family. Not for all the money in the world. And certainly not for Simmonds, Schenn, and a second round pick.Everything is warped and dangerously vibrant before Jeff’s eyes.<><>aka #Carts2Flyers2020
Relationships: Jeff Carter/Mike Richards, Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 25
Kudos: 208





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting the beginning of this to make myself finish also because i love to think about what would happen if jeff was traded back to the flyers. This is going to be significantly longer eventually, but I wrote all of this so far today. 
> 
> title from pale blue eyes because i remembered the lyrics "Thought of you as my mountain top/Thought of you as my peak/Thought of you as everything / I've had but couldn't keep" and carts/richie and it Had to Be Done !

It’s different when Jeff comes back to Philly. It ended badly, objectively, last time he was here.

If he dwells on it too long he can smell the whiskey airing out of Mike’s skin and feel the anguish pulling at his gut twice as hard as the hangover.

There’s a new Carter when Jeff comes back. Some things take adjusting to.

<><>

Travis tries not to make a habit of eavesdropping and interfering, but -- 

But Jeff is intriguing. He’s been here before. He knows Philly, but not in ways which matter anymore. The team is different. The coaches are different. The culture, it’s all different. Travis can’t imagine what that’s like.

“You know,” Jeff says to him, riding out a narrow win over the Ducks, one night at a bar. “I used to have this feeling, like nothing that was happening right then was real. Like everything was dream. That nothing we did here mattered.”

Travis is quiet for a beat. He doesn’t think he knows what to do with that.

“And then I realized,” Jeff says, a perfunctory swing out of his beer, “None of this does matter. It’ll all go to shit anyways.”

<><>

Jeff isn’t pessimistic. Not really. But he’s been burned before. He’s been burned by the Flyers before, and even a decade later the scars remain. Jeff and Jakub get along, despite everything, but there’s an edge to Jeff’s gaze around the locker room. It’s as if everything is surreal, everything is a ploy to trick the mind.

Sometimes, breath coming in quick spurts after closing out a period, Jeff feels his eyes tracing the orange an black, the sleek wings of the logo, the flurry of movement and waiting for Mike to come through the tunnel. For Mike to steal the sets beside his in the locker room and look at him in the hopeful, overeager shit grin of their rookie season. He still remembers Mike at eighteen and the way his body stretched long and lean before them. Everything was bubbled with excitement back then. Every moment was  _ GoGoGo _ and  _ NowNowNow _ . 

They were kids; Jeff can look back and admit that now. They were children with contracts bigger than they could fathom and too much freedom and too much responsibility to mix together in a way which could never not be disastrous. 

Each look around the room sparks a new memory in Jeff’s head. There’s memories so compressible and ordinary that hit him square in the chest. Mike’s fingers wrapping tape around his stick or -- the bar down the street from his first apartment where they had the dollar wells that Jeff drank religiously on Tuesday nights, or wait -- the stretch of arms and snag of a jersey against shoulder pads. The numbers 17 and 18 circling each other on the ice; the way Richie always knew where he was and could get the pass right there, right then.

He sees the Farg and he feels everything at once.

He sees all the places he grew up in, the places where he fell in love, the places he had all of that snatched away from him in a quick, violent snap and he feels absolutely nothing.

He sees Claude with the C and it reminds him of Richie. It reminds his how young Claude was last time they were here together; he’s not tracking Briere with hangdog eyes anymore, he’s commanding the room. The boom of his voice demands respect.

In some ways, Jeff and Richie leaving turned Claude into this. In some ways, more clearly visible to him now, the worst moments of Jeff’s life led to the best moments of Claude’s. 

Claude’s position in the room is met with intent respect and unwavering love. Jeff sees how Frosty and Joel’s eyes shine with adoration when he pulls them aside during practice or at a team meal. To them, Claude’s role to this team is fixed. They could never imagine having him ripped from his team, from his city, his family. Not for all the money in the world. And certainly not for Simmonds, Schenn, and a second round pick. 

Everything is warped and dangerously vibrant before Jeff’s eyes. 

  
  


<><>

  
  


Nolan and Jeff become friends. Travis doesn’t know if it’s the existentialism or the montoned sarcasm or what, but after Jeff’s press conference Nolan’s slow roam around the locker room results in a hushed toned chat. 

Travis watches this all with a cautious eye. Jeff has already talked to JVR and Claude, the couple guys from before, but the crowd has thinned out. Jeff’s the one to corner Nolan, his California tan laughing at the smooth expanse of pale skin covering Patty. 

It’s comical, almost, the spread of space between the two of them in conjunction with the flat toned dialogue. Anyone else might think Nolan is as uninterested as the lack of inflection in his voice, but Travis can see how his eyes follow Jeff’s movements, the subtle lean of his body towards Jeff. 

Nolan is intrigued by Jeff, Travis can see it unfolding right before his eyes.

<><>

Travis isn’t jealous per se, but as he slowly notices the amount of time Nolan spends with Jeff growing, a coil tightens in Travis’ chest. 

Claude asks, offhand, if Jeff still has his house in Sea Isle, and the three days later Nolan says  _ wouldn’t it be cool to have a beach house _ . Jeff mentions how his family has a French bulldog and suddenly Patty’s pointing out  _ frenchies _ on the street. He even uses that nickname. And says it in a tone that borders fond.

It isn’t jealousy, but this current that overtakes TK’s head and wraps around his heart with grubby hands is insistent when he sees Nolan’s head tipped back as Jeff pulls a laugh out of him. He’s curious, is all. He wants to know what they talk about, heads knocked together at team cookouts and on long haul flights when Pats usually shrugs Travis’ conversation off to nap. 

The idea that Jeff Carter knows something about Nolan that Travis doesn’t unnerves him. 

<><>

The first time Nolan calls him  _ Carts _ Travis nearly swerves off the road. Travis can’t even grieve over it because Lawson is too preoccupied being a horrible friend. 

Law doesn’t care that Nolan is on nickname basis with Jeff or that they’re going to Sea Isle City to grill together on their next off day or that suddenly they’re best friends all because Pats uses Jeff’s old stall. Lawson just wants to know if his hair really looks that nice all the time. Or if Travis has seen his cup rings. 

He’s being a freak. An unsupportive freak. 

Travis didn’t act like this when Law started playing with Kessel. It isn’t fair, is all he’s saying.

<><>

Travis and Nolan don’t talk about it, but --

<><>

Jeff gets an A when he joins the team, obviously. He goes back to wearing 17 and when the media jokes  _ just like old times, huh? _ Travis sees the unease spreadly quickly across Jeff’s face. It dissipates just as fast, but the oddity of it hangs in Travis’ mind.

“What do you know about Richards?” Travis asks Claude the next night. They’re tucked into a corner booth at a lowkey italian restaurant and G shoots him a quizzical look before turning back to his kid.

“Mike Richards?”

“Uh-huh,” Travis nods. He had not even attempted to be casual about this. Travis knows who Mike Richards is, on a basic level required of anyone who has ever played hockey in Philadelphia. But he can’t remember the specifics. All that sticks out is the trade.

“Is there a particular reason you took me out to dinner to ask this? Instead of, I don’t know, just using Google.”

Claude is apathetic to TK, a delightful contrast to the care he takes with ripping off bits on bread for Gavin.

G is far from impressed by the silence Travis answers with.

“Richie is a good guy, Teeks. I don’t know what you want to know, but he’s a decent guy.” Claude turns his fork to snag the dregs of spaghetti in his bowl and sighs a final time. “If you really want to know about Richie, why not ask Carts. You know their deal.”

“Their deal? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Claude is truly unimpressed now. “Well, they were best friends since they were drafted. Won two cups together. You might remember that?”

But that, that piques his interest. 

“You used past tense.  _ Were _ ?”

“Travis, listen,” he’s put on his serious voice now, as if he is not to be messed with. “Why are you even asking about this?”

If Lawson laughed Travis under the table for his jealousy of Jeff fucking Carter, he’s certainly not telling G.

“Just…You know.” He flaps his hand vagely. 

“I really don’t.”

Travis doesn’t even know what he would say if he tried to explain everything to Claude. He doesn’t know how to articulate what Nolan is to him or why it feels like he’s been bag skated to hell and back when he sees Patty and Jeff in discussion all the time. He doesn’t want to say he’s jealous that they’re grilling organic chicken recipes Jeff got from Jonathan fucking Toews -- the other great evil of TK’s life -- together at Jeff’s Sea Isle City house.

Him and Nolan don’t talk about it, except for that one time, but --

But what if --

Travis could just say it. He could open his mouth and pull that wretched feeling out from under his rib cage and in a second it would be out there. In the single moment between brain to mouth, someone else in this world would know what Travis has run through his mind a thousand times since the first time they met.

He could just admit, without apology, the truth he’s long been afraid to embrace.

“I think I’m just being stupid,” he tells Claude and flags the waitress down for the check before he can be interrogated further.

  
  



	2. 2 - heirloom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> siiiike im making this three chapters. Also shout out to heirloom by sufjan stevens for being the way it is :)
> 
> additionally listen to the palace by father john misty and think about jeff/mike and be sad :))

Nolan texts him the next morning  _ G says ur being weird _ alongside a gamepigeon notification. 

Travis doesn’t want to answer the first part and he definitely doesn’t want to get beaten again in mancala, so he turns his phone over. 

  
  


It should be expected when Patty corners him at practice later that afternoon. His hair is stuck up wildly beneath his hat and Travis hates the curl of endearance in his body. 

“You’re not texting me back.”

“Maybe I’m busy.”

Travis is absolutely not busy. He almost resorted to opening the puzzle his mom gave him last Christmas just to have something to do last night. 

“You’re not busy.”

Sometimes he hates how easily Nolan can placate him. He hates how powerless he feels to his emotions, how easily he gives in to Pats. He’s felt this way before, but never this intensely. Travis doesn’t know how to handle this.

<><>

When Travis was sixteen, the future stretched widely before him in bright, electric streaks. He moved to Ottawa, Lawson went to Kingston and everything turned upside down. 

There was an absence within him, this gaping spot which had previously overflown with Lawson this, Lawson that. Travis missed his Mom and his brother and all his friends, but the way he missed Lawson was different. It felt like he was being cracked open at the thought of his laugh or his stubborn ability to never pick a movie. Travis had new friends, friends who could skate faster than Lawson and shoot harder. They did the same things Travis and Lawson did, but it never felt the same. 

He yearned for Lawson. Not just his company but how Travis had felt around him. 

At 16, pining over his best friend felt like a death sentence. Travis didn’t realize how he felt was different than how the other guys on his team talked about each other. He didn’t realize how much he wanted or the significance of that very act. 

He didn’t want to be  _ different _ and he didn’t want to address whatever it was he felt towards Lawson. He just knew that he didn’t want to tell everyone that he wasn’t interested in Brittany from his pre-calc class, no matter how many lewd jokes were thrown his way. 

He felt nothing in all the spots everyone expected him to. He felt too small, too weird. The way in which he missed Lawson made him ache and made him scared.

At 18, Travis is traded to Sarnia and he wonders if they  _ knew _ . At 18, he’s no braver than he was at 16. 

At 20 he watches the Flyers draft a lanky, close cropped Canadian boy second overall. He sees the slight of Nolan’s smile, the swoop of his hair against skin so pale and so smooth. His cheeks have colored nervously and everyone is clapping, his mother is crying beside him. A familiar feeling draws taut in his heart.

He’s older but no wiser. 

<><>

At 23, Travis wonders if he’s any braver than he was at 16, scared shitless to have feelings beyond platonic towards his best friend. His feelings weren’t simple then and they aren’t any easier to swallow now. Nothing about him feels easy. 

He sees the way Nolan looks at Jeff and Travis is getting tired of telling himself it doesn’t mean anything. He’s tired of pretending him and Nolan haven’t been skirting around this for months, for years. 

He’s tired in his bones, in his heart. He wants to be able to look at Nolan point blank and say how he feels. 

He doesn’t want to be seventeen again, hands moving too quickly out of a hug with Lawson because he felt too much, too largely for someone he shouldn’t. He doesn’t want to pretend it doesn’t bother him when Nolan shrugs him off, when Nolan expects from him something he won’t give Travis. 

He wants honestly, he thinks that’s a good starting point. 

<><> 

Mike was named captain at 23. Jeff can still remember the bursting smile plastered on Richie’s face after the news broke. He remembers that and so much more. The wobbly grin in his first press event as  _ Captain of the Philadelphia Flyers _ , as Jeff panted punch drunk at the bar that night, several rounds into a Margarita Monday special. The way Mike’s mom cried over the phone and Jeff pretended not to hear. The booze, the adrenaline, the flurry of change that consumed them whole. 

Jeff remembers it all, even when he doesn’t want to. Even when it hurts, when it feels aggressively hopeless not to forget, to move on and let go. 

Jeff can remember being six and scraping his knee on the sidewalk as he learned to ride a two wheel bike. His dad’s voice was genial in a way it rarely was those days, telling Jeff not to pick the scab, to leave the wound alone if he wants it to heal. 

Two days later Jeff dug his nails back into his knee and let the blood trickle down his leg. 

He feels like that now, 36 and still picking scabs, afraid that the memories will fade with the wound. 

<><>

Nolan and Travis talk about a lot of things. But they don’t talk about each other, as in  _ Travis&Nolan _ as a whole. He hears what the guys say, Travis knows what they call them. Married couple. He’s heard it a thousand times. 

They don’t talk about their relationship and they definitely don’t talk about Jeff. Travis is sick of it, frankly. 

At the bar last week, Travis could feel Jeff tracking him with a watchful gaze. He was waiting, silent and thoughtful about something Travis did not understand. TK doesn’t know what Nolan’s been saying to him, but he’s sure it has something to do with the conspicuous way Jeff acts as his shadow.

Jeff isn’t a careless person. He wants Travis to know he’s watching, which is the part he can’t figure out.

“So,” Travis starts. Him and Nolan and stretched across the basement in TK’s new house. They gave up on Call of Duty a few hours ago and have let movies run through cable in the background. Nolan has half an eye on Cate Blanchette and the other on Travis. 

Travis clears his throat. “So how’s Jeff?”

Nolan groans deeply. 

“How do you make that sound so embarrassing?”

“I just wanna know, like -- I dunno, what do you talk about?”

Nolan is getting dangerously red. “What we  _ talk _ about?”

Travis turns back to the TV, willing his brain to register the movie. He sees a spread of ice on the screen, yet all he feels is the heaviness of Nolan’s stare.

“I, uh. I was asking him what it was like.” Patty stops there, like he does sometimes. Leaving the rest of the sentence hanging as if he is willing Travis not to make him say the words he’s left behind.

“To win the cup, you mean?” Travis asks.

“To be injured. To be traded,” Nolan clarifies and in one fell swoop the ground slides out from under Travis.

“C’mon, Patty.” Travis’ voice has climbed a pitch and he feels rough around the edges. “They’re not going to trade you.”

Nolan’s voice is so small in reply. “You don’t know that,” he says earnestly. “Carts said--” and at that Nolan promptly shuts his mouth. “Nevermind, it’s stupid.”

“Pats-”

“Just drop it, Travis.” And -- Oh.  _ Travis _ . Nolan doesn’t call him that. He calls his TK, Teeks, Trav. The full breadth of letters feel awkward on Nolan’s lips, feel out of place in his voice. 

Nolan’s mouth is a hard line and his body is rigid where it lies beside Travis. He sees the gears grinding within TK’s head and sighs. “Please, Trav. It’s fine, I promise. Just leave it.”

Travis absolutely does not leave it alone. He does let Nolan sulk on his couch as the Cate Blanchette movie turns to the Owen Wilson movie to the Reese Witherspoon lawyer one though. He lets Nolan head droop onto his shoulder and snore softly in his ear while Luke Wilson makes an appearance on screen.

In this position, Nolan stays a steady warmth beside him. Travis can feel the quick puffs of breath rushing through Nolan’s lungs, he can feel the mumbling deep in his chest, the twitch of his fingers against his lap. It’s a moment of vulnerability and the coil inside Travis which has stayed so tightly bound these past few months unwinds slowly. 

In a way he feels better, safer in this position. In another, he feels 16 and rootless again. He feels pliable and restless and consumed by the feeling of it all.

<><>

Travis spends the flight to Tampa the next morning turning ideas over in his head. The other Travis and Ivan give him wary looks and deal him into their card game, ignoring the spacey participation he lends them. 

Nolan is two rows ahead sharing tangled headphones with Haysey. They’re watching _ Black Mirror _ and Travis can hear Kevin making soft, unconscious sounds in reaction. Joel is taking and retaking a snapchat that must be important, if the way he turns to Hartsy after each attempt to ask  _ this one? _ is any indication. And when he steals a peek behind him, Travis sees Jeff is in the back of the plane, nodding politely as Claude picks his brain.

It’s all ordinary, all thoughtlessly pleasant, and in that instant Travis finds himself thinking he could do this forever. That he  _ wants _ to do this forever, with these people in this place. 

The feelings seem too big for the cabin of the plane with its recycled air and fleeting nature. The feelings seem important in a life-affirming way.

<><>

In the end, all the plans Travis concocted of how to bring up the Nolan situation to Jeff are useless. Carts finds him at the bar in Tampa that night, tie hung loosely around his neck and first few buttons undone. 

He says, “Travis, buddy,” and flashes a toothless smile. TK is absolutely not bringing it up to Lawson on their next FaceTime call.

It’s eerily similar to the first time Jeff corned Travis back in Philly and laid out all his nihilist, self-deprecating bullshit onto him. Travis doesn’t know what to do with that.

But Jeff’s demeanor is different now. He’s twitchy where he’s usually calm, smooth and practiced in his movements. His eyes shift across the bar, searching for something he can never find. And his hands. Jeff is picking haphazardly at the label on his beer, as if he’s almost unaware of his body’s movement.

“You alright there, Carts?” Travis doesn’t want to be a dick, more than he usually is, but Jeff looks like shit. He looks like he went through hell and back, not like he just assisted on their game winning goal.

“You know, there’s always talk when I go back to Columbus or LA. And it doesn’t bother me.”

“Sure,” Travis says back. They played the Kings a few weeks back and there was a tasteful video tribute to Jeff. There was no fanfare of that sort in Columbus, not that TK blames them.

“Sure,” Jeff agrees and takes a long sip.

Travis isn’t sure what the play is here. He feels horribly out of depth and also like Jeff is going to impart some form of twisted wisdom onto him. Which could be anything from don’t post photos of you and your bro doing those test tube shots on the internet or that adding kale to your daily diet is more beneficial than you would think. He wants to ask about Patty, but --

“Richie lives in Florida, ya know?”

“Huh?”

“Richie. Uh, Mike. You know, Richards.”

“Oh! Yeah.” Travis is doing an impression of someone pretending to be a human. And a human who’s acting like they haven’t read Mike’s Wikipedia page front and back 5 times over in the past month. Who hadn’t asked Claude about his behavior. 

Jeff is silent for a beat and Travis wonders strangely if he hasn’t said enough for once.

“Are you going to see him?”

Jeff snorts at that. “No, Travis. I’m not going to see him.” He’s using a tone that implies it was a stupid question. Like there’s not a ton of photos still up on his Instagram of them in Philly or Los Angeles or Kenora. They aren’t front and center, but it’s still a noticeable presence.

Travis is suddenly very happy he refilled his drink before Jeff corned him.

“Aren’t you guys…” Travis trails off, his voice tampering off with uncertainty. “Friends?”

“You know,” He says again, as if unaware of this nervous tick as well. “Nolan said you were funny. And I see it now.”

Jeff says  _ Nolan _ simply, unbothered not to use the nicknames everyone else does. And there’s a lot Travis wants to take in about that statement, starting with the fact that Nolan is talking to Jeff about him. And the fact that he thinks Travis is funny, a fact he religiously and adamantly denies. But that’s all background noise to the slope of Jeff’s shoulder and the absent glow inhibiting his pupils.

“I hear what the guys say about you two, eh?” Carts is nodding in Pats direction and Travis flushes as Jeff watches him watch Nolan.

“We’re just friends. It’s fine.”

“You don’t have to lie to me.”

“I’m not lying,” Travis snaps irritably. The calm, pitying look Jeff flashes is wearing his patience thin. “Really,” he sighs, “We’re just friends.”

“Okay.”

“I hear what people say about you and Richards,” Travis parrots back at him. 

“People have said a lot of fucking things about Richie and I.” Jeff knows what the articles used to look like, what the Tweets eventually became about.

First it was the drinking, the partying in Philly. It was about their rookie season and the deftness of Jeff’s hands, the heart of Mike’s play. Then there were the rumors. Smith packing up for Edmonton and Richie becoming Captain at 23.

There was Mike, stale faced and petulant after a loss, refusing to talk to the media. And every time, there was Jeff right there at his side. Everyone said they had tunnel vision, one reporter said they couldn’t look past each other and Jeff laughed bitterly at the twisted truth in that one.

Jeff can remember it all. He remembers how lauded Richie was in their Cup run that year, remembers the burst of pride, the ignorant hope he felt as his pen dragged across the page, believing he was giving himself to Philadelphia for life. Believing the city would give itself back to him with equal love.

A decade later he remembers June. He knows the beat of the Jersey sun on his back, how July was creeping around the corner. The phone calls, a pair of them. One for Mike and one for Jeff. Tunnel vision all over again.

It was 2011 and Jeff thought he might never see Mike again. He was 26 and had his heart stomped out by the people he had spent the past six years killing himself for, the people he had taken the lesser deal for. Because he wanted to be in Philadelphia and he wanted to be there with Richie, until they were old and their laps around the ice slowed and their jerseys went from being on their backs to being in the rafters. 

The whole vision felt stupid suddenly. It felt like a child’s pipedream. A work of fiction. 

There was Columbus, and oh, boy did the media love that. The article about Nash coming down to his beach house to talk some sense into him made him want to vomit. He was miserable in Columbus; injured and lovesick and weeks away from a no-trade clause holding him prisoner to the state of Ohio.

And then, suddenly, California. Sun in his hair and sand in his soles. Arnold running across the boardwalk to him, his leash long abandoned in Richie’s hand. He knows what everyone said.

Philadelphia said he was a negative influence on the team’s culture. Columbus said he was underproducing. John Boruk said  _ Mike likes Jeff but Jeff loves Mike. Carter can't pack fast enough _ . Los Angeles said it was a fairy tale ending.

So, when Travis says he knows what they say about Jeff’s relationship with Richie, it could mean a thousand heartbreaking, different things. 

“What do they say about us?”

“You know what they say. Best friends, roommates,  _ hero worship _ .” TK’s tone is assessing, nearly hesitant.

“We’re just friends,” Jeff says, mirroring the stubborn climb of TK’s voice. 

In the silence between them, Travis can see Patty’s eyes search the room and pause on the two of them. As Jeff speaks again, Travis nearly misses it.

“When you’re 23, you think everything will be amazing. You think you’ll be here forever. You want that, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Travis replies without thought.

“So they sign you to a big contract. And it’s more years than you can even think to look ahead to. But who cares? You’re staying, right?”

Travis nods slowly. 

“And you tell yourself, now you have it. Now it’s time.” Jeff’s eyes close and his throat works as he swallows the bottom of the bottle. 

“You think,” Jeff tells him. “You think that the way you love this city and this team is the same way it loves you. But they don’t care, not in the way you do.”

“Okay,” Travis says.

“And before you know it, the future you wrote with each other has been upended. And you want love to be enough, but it’s not. It never is.”

“I thought you said --”

“Friends? Yeah.” Carts is running his fingers through his hair, the picked over label abandoned as the paper crumbles with the sweat of the bottle. “You think one day it’ll happen. You’re so sure of it. But listen, Travis, it isn’t like that. As much as I want it to be, it never happens like that.”

“What about LA, though?”

Jeff blows air out his mouth harshly. The tone of his voice softens. He’s not drunk, but there’s the warmth of the beer underlining his words in a way just above that level of subtlety. 

“I got to Los Angeles and I thought everything would be perfect. Finally. I was so happy those first few months. I had Mike and we were scoring and winning like we hadn’t in so long. It didn’t matter if he didn’t have the C anymore, that we weren’t in Philly. And I thought, this is it. This is when it happens. We’ve been waiting for so long, just standing on the precipice of  _ something _ .”

“And?”

“And then one day, I open my eyes and Richie’s just --” Jeff pauses. “Mike wasn’t the same. He was different. He was darker. They put him on waivers and suddenly, he was just  _ gone _ . Again.”

The silence is unbearable. 

“We were supposed to stay here and still be playing together. Maybe, Mike would still be captain. Maybe he would have gone with me to Sochi, but it wouldn’t have even mattered. Nothing else would matter.”

“He got arrested?” Travis remembers this, vaguely.

“Yea.”

“And then?”

Jeff sighs. “And then he signed with Washington and stopped taking my calls. He retired and he didn’t even tell me. Do you know how I found out? Through Toews. He sent me a message about our team Canada days. He was my-- he didn’t  _ tell me _ .” The final words stretch flatly in between them, disappearing quickly into the din of the bar, but etching Jeff’s face with tangible sorrow. 

Travis wants to do something; reach out, maybe. Get Jeff another beer, probably. But his tongue feels heavy in his mouth and his jaw is snapped tightly shut. He doesn’t think he’s reading this wrong, but he isn’t sure.

“Why are you --” He clears his throat impatiently. “Jeff, why are you telling  _ me _ this?”

“You don’t have forever. They might tell you that you have forever, but you can’t believe it. You can’t base your plans around forever. You think that you have time, that you’ll end up together, but nothing’s promised. It won’t turn out how you think it will.”

“You mean —?” Travis finds himself staring across the bar at Nolan perched on the barstool beside Hartsy.

“Yea, Travis. I mean Nolan.”

“They’re not trading Patty.”

Jeff’s eyebrows raise quickly. “I didn’t say they were.”

Travis thinks about  _ it _ , that  _ thing _ him and Nolan don’t talk about. He thinks about the desperation he felt when his contract was under negotiation and Pats went back to the city without him. How he came back and found Nolan had moved out of their building, had gotten himself a girlfriend and new roommate. 

Travis’ stomach had twisted hotly. Blood rushed through his ears and his bent traitorously into a shirt little frown. In a way, Travis had always believed it was the two of them. That him and Nolan were going to end up together. He thought Nolan felt that way, too.

And he hadn’t said it explicitly, but Nolan  _ knew _ . He felt that way, too.

But nothing ever happened. Travis was in London ripping his hair out over the contract, and Nolan was moving boxes into Kevin Hayes’ new house, and that was that. 

_ We’ll let it be for now. We’ll see what happens _ . That’s what Nolan had said, what Travis had agreed to. Travis signed his contract, moved into his own new house, and pretended he wasn’t overwhelmed with every look Nolan cast his way. 

Nolan and the girl broke up after a few weeks. They didn’t talk about it, but Travis has privately hoped —

Looking at Jeff, Travis doesn’t want to be like that. He doesn’t want to let what he has right in front of him slip away.

He doesn’t want to be 35 and saying over two fingers of whiskey  _ I used to love a boy that lives around here. We played together for years and never told each other how we felt. Now we don’t even talk. _

He doesn’t want to come back to Philadelphia without Nolan and finish what they started together alone. He doesn’t want to wait until Vigneault and Fletcher send him to Glendale or Raleigh or Anaheim. He wants what he’s always wanted, what he’s always been too scared to admit.

He doesn’t want to wake up one day and realize he’s out of time. 

Jakub announces to the bar that he’s calling an uber, and before Travis registers it, Carts has slid off his barstool and placed a twenty in front of him. 

“Think that’s my cue to leave,” is all he says as he drags himself away. 

<><>

They win in Sunrise. Jeff gets a goal and Travis takes home two assists. They don’t talk in the locker room or on the plane, but Carts nods knowingly when Nolan stops beside his row on the plane.

“I need my beauty sleep, Pats,” Jeff tells him. “Go bother TK, why don’t you?”

<><>

Travis has questions for Jeff, a lot more than he did before their talk. He wants to know if Nolan knows, if he really feels for Travis as he cares for him. It’s a dizzying prospect. 

Nolan asks about it on the plane, pestering him with questions. He has about as much subtlety as Travis did, absolutely no finesse as he asks the  _ hell you and carts were talking about in Ybor _ . 

“We talked about the power play.”

“The power play?” Nolan says disbelieving. “The power play that you two don’t play on together? That one?”

“Sorry you aren’t as committed as we are, Pats.”

Nolan rolls his eyes and seems physically caught between wanting to ask more and maintaining his chill. 

Travis knocks his shoulder into Nolan’s playfully. “Hey,” his voice scratches lowly. “We were just talking about London, ‘kay? Nothing to worry about.”

His chest fills warmly as Nolan’s crown smooths out and he huffs faux annoyed. “Wasn’t worried,” Patty sighs. “And that’s a 3,” he points quickly to the abandoned Sudoku game on TK’s tray table. 

It’s easier to breathe after that. 

<><>

Jeff should expect it, really. Claude was slated to host the team not-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving party, but suddenly he has a sick toddler and the question  _ new host?? _ is posted in the group chat. 

Travis volunteers Jeff, much to Patty’s surprise. 

Travis needs to snoop is all. He’s never been out there and he still has a thousand and one questions for Jeff. Plus, he doesn’t trust these guys in his own house. They’re monsters and he can guarantee Joel or Frosty will be throwing up into something that is not a toilet or a trash can before the night is over. 

Claude brings it up at practice later that morning. “You do know it’s not your house, right, Teeks?”

He shrugs Claude off. “Carts doesn’t mind, do you?”

His eyes narrow quickly, but Jeff rolls his shoulders and smiles simply. “Sure, just don’t destroy anything.”

Haysey whoops loudly. “Can’t promise that, man!” And fist bumps Nolan, who’s doing an impressive job of death glaring Travis. 

“What’s up with you,” Nolan asks him in the car. He begged off carpooling with Haysey today and Travis found him mulling around his stall when he finished showering. It reminds him so much of how things used to be that his heart seized up for second. 

“What? Nothing’s up.” Travis is objectively bad at lying to Nolan. But he could have worse problems

“Why are you suddenly so—” Nolan shimmies his hand in a way Travis can’t interpret. “Buddy-buddy with Carts now. Thought you hated him.”

“Are you mad that I’m friends with him now? Is that what’s happening?”

“No,” Nolan says, cheeks coloring hotly. “I’m not  _ mad _ ,” he stresses. Travis wonders if jealousy is a better word.

“Could’ve had me fooled, man.”

“Ugh, whatever.”

Sometimes Travis remembers so suddenly how young Nolan is, how young they both are. It makes him smile in a way that’s wobbly and over sensitive. In another life, he can imagine them at college lazing around a dorm the way they do their hotel rooms on the road. There’d still be nights at the bar, but these ones shittier and probably lax in a different way about their IDs. He wonders, idly, if away from all this, would they still be friends?

It’d be easier that way, to be something more. They wouldn’t have to play this game back and forth. It’s maddening. Travis wants to believe there’s a world where it’s easier for them. He needs to.

  
  


When they get home, Travis really does pull out that puzzle from his mom. He makes Nolan work on the corner pieces while he tries to assemble the CN Tower sticking through the middle of the puzzle.

“This is like, so many pieces, Teeks,” Nolan whines.

“Box says a thousand.”

“The box can go fuck itself.” Nolan connects two pieces and makes a grunt Travis takes to be triumphant.

“Mom got me this, watch yourself. Don’t think I won’t kick you out.”

Nolan holds his hands up in surrender. “I’m just saying. She couldn’t find anything easier?”

“White kittens in a blizzard was sold out, sorry, man.”

“What- oh fuck off, Trav.”

Nolan’s cheeks are flushed happily and Travis lets that feeling wash over and intoxicate him. Nolan flicks two pieces out of his hands, and -- “Hey!”

“Those didn’t go together,” Nolan reasons simply.

“Keep to your part of the puzzle.”

Nolan throws him a stink eye, and Travis thinks it’s only half serious.

<><>

Nolan stays over that night. Travis doesn’t know if it’s an accident, but the way Nolan stretches himself out on the couch and swaddles himself within a blanket and instructs Travis to just keep watching the movie even as he nods off gives him pause. 

It’s not even that late when the movie ends, but Nolan yawns sheepishly and makes up an excuse about not wanting Travis to have to drive him across town that late.

“I’ll just take a guest room, Trav. Isn’t that why you got this place?”

There’s no reason that comment should bring heat to Travis’ face, but it’s too close to the truth. Travis bought this house to have a future in. A future that involved someone else.

“Sure, okay,” He bables back stupidly.

It’s not until he’s in bed, futzing around with the sheets that he realizes Nolan could have called an Uber or a Lyft. Or that there really wouldn’t be any traffic at this time of night. He swallows heavily and doesn’t know what to do with this information.

<><>

Travis drives them to Jeff’s the next day, detouring quickly to get Nolan a change of clothes and pick up Kevin, who is admittedly _already_ _a couple brews in, bro_. 

Haysey takes shotgun and loudly plays a game on his phone. In the rearview mirror, Travis can see Nolan’s head tipped back with silent laughter.

“I’m fucking horrible, oh my fucking god!”

Nolan laughs lowly at that one.

Then: “I’m trash. I’m the worst player in this game. Holy fuck,” and Nolan body twists with his laughter, as if he can’t contain himself. 

“Whatcha even playing?” Travis can’t see anything beyond the flurry of movement of Kev’s fingers across the screen.

Nolan is keeping himself painfully still in the backseat, his mouth twitching traitorously every few seconds.

“Animal crossing,” Kevin sighs.

“Animal crossing?”

“Animal crossing,” Patty confirms.

“Like the little animals with-”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Nolan giggles.

“I’m fucking horrible. I suck.”

“How? You don’t even do anything, it’s just--”

“Woah, woah,” Kevin and Nolan both interrupt.

“It’s a whole ecosystem, man.”

“He runs a  _ campsite _ , Teeks. They have their own  _ economy _ .” Nolan’s shaking his head with that same mischievous look in his eyes. 

“We have a fishing tournament, dude,” Haysey stresses.

“And gardening ones, don’t forget the gardening events.”

“Fuck, you’re right. Oh, turn here, Teeksy!” Kevin shoves his whole hand across TK’s body to point left, as if he hasn’t been running the GPS aloud this entire car ride.

  
  


<><>

The thing about the Not-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving party is that it’s fucking amazing. Travis is pretty sure it was Jakub and G’s idea originally, which just makes it even better. The Not-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving, as was explained to TK his rookie year, is just an excuse to day drink the weekend before the American holiday. They don’t have to do any cooking or media like at an official team party, and there’s a lot more booze.

It’s arguably TK’s favorite holiday. Last year, Nolan got so drunk he started crying when Travis wouldn’t take him to Wendy’s. And then cried again out of happiness when Ivan postmated them frostys and french fries. 

Point is, it’s incredible. And also a great opportunity to make sure Jeff’s beach house isn’t a shrine to Mike Richards.

Nolan keeps a watchful eye on Travis at first, as if he’s scared Travis will spontaneously combust and burn down the house if left alone. But then Frosty wants to play badminton and Nolan rules at badminton. So, obviously, he gets all over that, and suddenly Travis is unaccompanied while Patty puts up a clinic in the backyard. 

The problem is, Travis doesn’t actually know the layout of this house. He’s never been here. There’s pockets of guys milling around various corners, heads bent closely in serious talk or sprawled across the couch in an early stage of drunken delight. It’s not hard to slip down the hallway and try his luck at the first door on his right.

The room is small and meticulously neat. There’s a bed in the center and an armoire layered with a tapestry. The decorations are minimal; beach house stuff. Sand dollars. Crabs. A couple anchors on the throw pillows in a deep, nautical blue.

But it’s the twin thin silver frames perched on the dresser that catches Travis’ attention. It’s nothing too extravagant, just a couple 5x7 with delicately braided frames. But the photos, that’s what Travis gets stuck on.

He’s seen photos of Jeff and Richie together, obviously, but never like this. In the first photo they’re no more than eighteen and thin as rails. Jeff’s hair is bright and blonde against his deep tan. His face is split open by a grin, toothy and not yet gaping in the center. Mike is laughing deeply, something coming deep from the chest, and his body bends towards Jeff like a tree in the wind. His eyes are closed, a tear slipping down one cheek. And Jeff, Jeff’s eyes are on Richie and there’s so much adoration in it that Travis nearly feels dizzy.

The second photo is something similar, but there are signs of the time. Richie’s hair is wild and long and his face occupied by a scruffy tangle of a beard. The lines around his eyes have deepend, his smile widened even further. Jeff, clutching dangerously to his arm, is bigger, arms and face filled out. They’re clad in black this time, and Travis can just make out the top of a crown where photo meets frame. There’s confetti and a flurry of movement behind them. Travis doesn’t need to read the stitched letters on Jeff’s cap to know what this is, what they’re celebrating. 

They look --

They look happy. It looks like a hundred of the photos Travis has saved of him and Patty and if he thinks about it much longer he’s convinced his heart may beat straight out his chest.

Someone clears their throat in the doorway.

It’s Carts, unsurprisingly.

“Shit. Sorry. Was just looking for the bathroom,” Travis lies. It’s probably not chill not to snoop through the personal items of your new bro.

“No worries,” Jeff shrugs him off, slowly stepping closer. His lips bend to a soft, closed mouth smile.

“That’s a good one,” he nods towards the first picture.

“Rookie year?”

“Before that. I’ve known Mike since we were 16. That was a few months after we met, if I remember correctly.” Jeff doesn’t seem like the type to not remember correctly. He’s precise in a way Travis isn’t. 

“I didn’t know that.”

“No reason to.” Jeff picks the photo up, his fingers light and cautious against the frame. 

“So, was this…” Travis trails off. He wonders if Jeff can see the literal foot in his mouth, “Uh, like the guest room? Mike’s room?”

Jeff’s voice echoes his tone from the Ybor bar. “No, Travis, this wasn’t Richie’s room.”

“I thought you said he stayed with you a lot?”

“He did.”

“Oh,” Travis says quietly. He’s unsure what to do with this information.

“You’re missing the party, you know?”

Travis steps back awkwardly, then promptly hits the baseboard of the bed with his legs. Jeff is amused, a tight lipped little smirk. It’s a very Nolan action.

“Uhhhh,” Travis says for the sake of saying anything at all.

“I can show you where the bathroom actually is,” Jeff suggests. “Or, get you another beer instead?”

“The second one. Definitely, the second one.”

  
  


Patty blinks happily, sun drunk and loose, when Travis slides through the patio door to the backyard.

Travis pops the cap on his beer and drinks it down in three long sips. It would be so easy, he reasons, to reach out and just take what he wants. So easy to blurt out everything he’s bottled up over the past two years. Pat’s smile is sweet and soft and directed squarely on Travis.

When Patty flings himself down beside Travis, a touch too close, the warmth spreads pleasantly through TK’s body. He’s burning up where Nolan’s leg is angled against his.

It’s dizzying.  _ You need to work on your shit _ , he tells himself. Then Provy passes him another drink and he lets the world wash over him, lets the heat of Pats body beside him envelop him. 

  
  


<><>

Patty sweet talks Jeff into letting them spend the night. Most of the other guys have cleared out or passed out on the sectional, but Pats sweet talks Carts into letting him use the guest room. 

Travis is fully prepared to shove a rookie over and bundle up on an armchair, but Nolan’s big hand wraps around his wrist and tugs expectantly towards the bedroom. 

“Pats,” he says dumbly. His brain is foggy and his eyes tired and all he wants is sleep, but the intensity of Nolan’s gaze unbalances him. His mouth feels dry when Nolan shrugs. 

“We’ll just share. Don’t make it weird.”

“I wasn’t making it weird.”

Nolan strips out of his shirt. “You were making it weird.”

He wasn’t. Really. Except for the open mouth stare he returns as Patty wriggles out of his too tight skinny jeans and flops on the bed. 

He’s seen him change a thousand times. They shared hotel rooms on the road for a whole season, after all. But it’s different here with the soft lights and the big bed and the dopey drunkenness of them both. 

“Okay,” Travis says, mostly to himself. 

“Are ya gonna get in bed?” Patty mumbles mostly into the pillow, lips slack against the sheets and hair tufting out across his face. Jesus. 

“Right. Yea, totally.”

“Weird,” Nolan whispers again once they’re both burrowed under the covers. Travis feels dizzy suddenly and he doesn’t know if it’s proximity to Nolan or the shots he pounded with Provy, but he reaches out without thought to grab Nolan’s wrist. It’s a mirror of when Pats dragged him into the room, and Travis hopes his face doesn’t show how he feels about that. 

“Hey, Trav?”

Nolan has a serious face on and his body curls impossibly closer to Travis. 

“Yea?”

“Are you okay? You’re all,” he waves his hand that’s not under TK’s grip in a quick, little motion. It’s painfully  _ him _ and sends a small thrill through his body. 

“Yeah, I’m just. I’m thinking.”

Patty doesn’t make a mean comment about that, or an easy joke like most of the guys usually would and usually do. 

“What about?”

He looks so small under the thick duvet and Travis thinks, wildly, that he loves him. 

“Do you think if we didn’t play hockey, would we still be friends?” 

Nolan exhales shortly. “Course we would.” He says it easily and Travis is glad to hear it but-

“I mean. Even if we just were, like, normal dudes. And we went to college or worked on a farm or a school or wherever. You think we’d still get along? We’d still be friends?”

“Travis,” Nolan says softly. “It’s still us. We’d still be friends. I promise, in every lifetime we’d still be us.” 

“Oh,” Travis says without realizing, mouth moving faster than his mind. Nolan had said that so easily, so honestly and full of utter belief. Travis doesn’t know where the words in his mouth have gone. 

“Don’t you agree?” Nolan asks sheepishly. 

“Yeah, Pats. Always.”

“Good,” Nolan huffs and brings his free hand up to TK’s forehead, brushes a strand of hair out of his face. “Sleep now,” he instructs. Travis listens. 

He falls asleep quickly, fingers curled around Nolan’s wrist, anchoring them to each other. 

<><>

In the morning, Travis wakes up to the door opening and light pooling through the blinds. 

“Coffee in the kitchen,” Jeff advises in a flat monotone and shuts the door softly. Travis should be embarrassed, probably, by the way they look. Nolan’s body is turned towards him, Travis’ hand still cradled between his chest and arm. 

Nolan humpfs in his sleep and Travis doesn’t want to forget this moment and the tenderness of it all if he never gets it again. The lax movement of Nolan’s mouth, the steady beat of one breath in, one breath out, the way Nolan looks so young and so uncomplicated. Travis wants to commit all to memory. He wants to remember Nolan like this, soft and happy as the East Coast sunrise filters through thin, cotton curtains.

Travis is a coward, so he flees. He shovels soggy eggs into his mouth and sips on a gatorade, willing his heart rate to steady. Joel looks worse for wear beside him, and he’s pretty sure Hartsy and Frosty are still asleep on the living room sofa. 

Jeff, the asshole, looks completely fine.

“How are you okay?” Joel groans. He’s been pushing around his eggs for a solid five minutes and is white all over. He still hasn’t learned not to go drink for drink with Scott and Raff, it’s stupid and endearing all at once.

“Years of practice, kid.” Carts grins sharklike and Travis finds himself staring at his missing front teeth again.

Frosty, god help him, walks in the room unfazed and blurts: “So, you got the cup rings here or what?” Travis can take comfort in not being the least subtle person of the team, apparently.

  
  


Travis idles in the kitchen, slowly dunking dishes into sudsy water and trashing any remaining beer bottles. The sound of Jeff’s steady voice echoes through the hall as he shows Joel and Morgan his Cup rings and Olympic medal. Travis likes it, the fixed tone of Jeff’s voice. He isn’t showy or boastful, and he politely answers every question Morgan has about Crosby and Luongo. 

It reminds him of Nolan during team events and the careful bend of his knees so he’s level with kids and patiently explains power plays or icing or whatever goalie interference actually is. He’s never unkind or shows how tired he really feels. Travis has a lot of feelings about the way Nolan acts around children and he wants to share about zero of them.

He can still hear, faintly, the rise and fall of Joel and Morgan asking about Los Angeles, about Sochi, about everything and more. Travis scrambles a few more eggs and burns some toast, calls it a day, and slides back into the bedroom. Nolan’s blinking sleep from his eyes and yawns widely.

“Sleeping beauty rises.” Travis sets the plate on his lap and uncaps the gatorade before sliding it onto the nightstand.

Patty’s nose scrunches up. “Gross, you sound like my mom.”

Not exactly the angle Travis was going for. 

“Yea, well.” He shrugs. “I brought you food. You could be a little nicer to me.”

“That’s no fun,” Nolan grumbles through a mouthful of eggs.

In the car, Nolan touches the back of his hand lightly and says, “Thank you,” in a way that makes TK’s grip tighten against the wheel.

It’s not until they’re halfway home that Travis wonders aloud, “What the fuck happened to Kevin?”

<><>

From Pats:  _ Kev is home. Confirmed not dead _

From Pats:  _ he forgot to play animal crossing tho and didnt get gold in the fishing tourny :( _

To Pats:  _ )-: _

  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s doneeeeee okay byeeeee. Did I proofread this? Unlikely. My apologies. Thanks for reading, if you did. Also tell me Kevin hayes wouldn’t be a great mayor in animal crossing

Travis starts a five goal game streak after the party. He’s leading the team in points and matching his records and he knows what the reporters are saying about him. That he’s having a  _ moment _ , having a  _ year _ , a  _ breakout season _ . 

He has his contract, six years worth of games in this city waiting eagerly at his feet. He has a house, the job he dreamed about as a kid that his classmates would laugh at him for wanting, he has friends. He has Nolan, in almost every way that matters. 

He’s so close to everything he wants with a feverish desire.

<><>

Jeff goes down in the next game on a bad check from the Blues. From the bench, Travis can see his mouth moving wilding, spewing violent nothingness to the ref. As he skates off, Jeff’s shoulders hunch and his body shakes with an anger Travis isn’t acquainted with. 

He doesn’t come back for the third. 

<><>

“Four weeks,” Jeff says flatly. 

Nolan looks nearly as miserable as Carts.

<><>

Jeff doesn’t travel with the team, obviously, but he can feel the weight of Jeff’s absence when they taxi before take off in Nashville. Nolan is grumpy, more so than usual, and he doesn’t even want to play sudoku. Or solitaire. 

He even brushes Kevin off when he shows Nolan the scavenger hunt going on in his Animal Crossing campsite. He isn’t even persuaded when Kevin tells him he can pick the perfect lemon that’s showed up. It’s a new low. 

Travis isn’t dumb enough to say something like  _ you seem quiet _ , or  _ are you okay? _

Because the answers are  _ obviously, Teeks _ and  _ no _ .

Once they settle at a cruising altitude, Travis leans over and pulls the earbud away from Nolan’s head. He still has the ones with wires, even though Travis knows he can afford air pods and can thus stop bitching about how they cords always tangled and how he can’t listen to music and charge his phone at the same time, and--

It’s beside the point, really.

“Hey,” he intones pointlessly. 

“Can I help you?” Nolan looks disdainfully at the movie playing blankly on TK’s laptop.

“‘M gonna go see Carts tomorrow after skate. Wanna come?”

The conflicted gaze of Nolan’s eyes is only a formality at this point. He sighs and Travis feels the wall crumbling slowly.

Nolan says  _ yes _ and Travis lets the swoop in his stomach wash over him. He goes to the bathroom and sets a reminder on his phone to text Carts when they land, also. But that’s none of Nolan’s business.

<><>

Jeff is not, per say, a bad patient. But he’s set in his ways. He doesn’t take well to Nolan setting his drink down without a coaster, or the running commentary Travis provides for every show he’s seen as the channel surf.

Carts makes them watch the Good Place after Travis declares he’s already seen the whole true crime section of Netflix and Patty vetoes the Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad and just basically anything Claude or suburban dads across North America watch.

Nolan doesn’t even nod off, as he usually does after two or three episodes. Him and Jeff laugh softly at first, then openly after a while. A tightness in TK’s chest eases, and momentarily it all feels okay. It feels alright to be here, to be who he is, and want what he wants.

<><>

Jeff, always the over-achiever, comes back after three weeks and two days. His residency in the press box spanned through New Year’s and his birthday, and ends a game before the all star weekend. 

His skin is tanner than usual and his smile brighter. The boys hoot over him at morning skate and Nolan smiles mindlessly as they run a passing drill. It’s only a slight quirk of lips, but Travis knows him and he knows that face. Whether or not he wants to broadcast it, Nolan’s happy. 

“Now I don’t have to sit next to you on the plane,” Pats teases easily. He deserves the shove Travis gives him in return, TK is willing to die on that hill.

Nolan sticks by his side anyways. He flashes the same shy smile when they head to Colorado and he pretends to be annoyed that Travis helps him with sudoku. Travis can play this game. He can be subtle and pretend it doesn’t make his heart ache, painfully and lovingly -- two emotions no one ever told him he would feel so closely -- when Nolan let’s him have the armrest, yet promptly nods off on his shoulder.

Travis can take the heated cheeks, the stolen glances. He can take and take and take, but his heart wants in a deeply embarrassing, transparently human way.

  
  


<><>

Even after Jeff comes back, Travis pretends to let Pats drag him over to watch the Good Place and wrap up in Carts’ softest blankets. He lets Jeff suggest they stay for dinner and Nolan insist  _ no really, we couldn’t _ even though they both know they will take Jeff up on the offer every time. 

Travis likes his new house. It’s private and painstakingly clean and  _ his _ . But between the flights and the drives to and from Skate Zone, a loneliness has moved in. Here, in the soft glow of Jeff’s living room, Travis knows where he belongs. He knows with a fierce devotion there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.

So he sits and he lets season one because season two and suddenly the armchair is his seat and the white quilted blanket is his blanket and Jeff’s house here with Nolan starts to feel overwhelmingly familiar; it starts to feel like home. 

<><>

“So, we’re going back to Florida.”

Jeff is wiping down his counters with a Clorox wipe as Travis loads the dishwasher. They’ve just finished season 2 and Nolan is asleep on the couch, and it’s a testament to how much Travis likes him that he isn’t even peeved by that.

But -- Florida. Right.

“Should be a good trip. Stamkos, Kucherov. Whoever’s on the Panthers.”

Jeff snorts perfunctorily.

And oh, right: Mike. Travis remembers their early trip to Tampa and Jeff’s laser focus gaze in the humid bar.

“It’s Mike’s birthday,” Jeff shrugs on a particularly aggressive swipe. “Couple a days before we get to Sunrise.”

“That’s nice,” Travis supplies. It’s not nice, not really. It’s probably nice for reporters or the people still sporting their decade old Carter 17 and Richards 18 jerseys, even in Sunrise, Florida. Even in 2020. 

But Travis very explicitly knows that this is not  _ nice _ or  _ cool _ or even  _ pleasant _ . Jeff is nice enough not to comment, even though TK can see him holding himself back.

“We’re going to get dinner.”

“Sorry, you’re doing what now?”

“Dinner. It’s a meal, usually eaten later in the day. Early evening, in most places.”

Travis takes a moment to appreciate Jeff’s deadpan, the strongest rival to Nolan’s monotone bitchiness.

“But with Mike? Why?”

Jeff wrings out the wipe in his hand which Travis is pretty sure isn’t the function of it, but he doesn’t know enough about like, cleanliness, to dispute it. 

“I’m tired of not talking about this. Being here is making everything feel amplified. Everything good I ever did here, in this city and in this league, was with Mike.”

“Shit.”

“It’s time, is all. Time for us to talk.” Jeff rolls the worry off him easily. Travis can understand what he’s saying beneath the front. There’s no way to untangle the good of the old days and his feelings for Mike. There’s no way to remember how it used to be without remembering how he and Mike used to be.

Everything is mixed together and blended into an indistinguishable ache. The way he loved this city -- fiercely unafraid and a little too much, a little too intensely and one-sided -- is exactly how he loved Richie. He can’t have one without the other, and he cannot pretend any longer.

“Put that on the top shelf,” Carts instructs, tone leveling out once again. Travis does what he says, would probably do anything he says to keep the glassy, pensive look off Jeff’s face.

<><>

He lies in bed, fully dressed and above the covers, for a significant amount of time when he gets home. Rolling Jeff’s words around his head until he feels a bone deep tiredness isn’t the healthiest coping mechanism, but he’ll try anything once. And –

Travis wants so wholly for the sick, two-thump beat of his heart to be significant. If Nolan knows, this will all mean something. If Nolan knows, then all this time that Travis has spent wanting and worrying over if his hand was too close, if his hug was too tight, too lingering; if Travis was too much or too loud or too obviously  _ not straight _ — if Nolan knows, then all of that won’t have been for nothing. 

He could say,  _ I loved someone and I told them _ . And  _ hey, it didn’t work out. But I’m not holding onto it anymore.  _

Thinking of Jeff, Travis knows he can’t move on without this one thing. He can smile politely and go to teammates' weddings stag and never give direct answers about how the dating scene is going, but it will all be fake. He can talk about his friendship with Nolan and how close they were, how they told each other everything — but it would be disingenuous. 

Travis wants honesty. He needs it. 

<><>

“We need to stop meeting like this,” Jeff says wryly. 

They’re at an outdoor bar this time, the hotel restaurant’s patio. Travis knows some of the boys are lingering in the lobby, caught between going out or sacking out. He knows Nolan is in Kevin’s room, playing Smash Bros on his Switch. 

Jeff went to dinner with Mike, he knows that, too. And then Jeff texted, a simple:  _ downstairs, I’m buying  _ and that was that. 

“How was dinner?” Is the obvious question Travis asks anyway. 

“Richie’s house is nice. He has a pool. And a couple dogs.” Travis nods. Jeff doesn’t care about the house or the dogs or what they ate for dinner. He cares about how Richie was alive and present, moving and breathing before him. 

Jeff speaks like Nolan does. His story unravels in a roundabout way, starting with what is unimportant and easy before acknowledging what is truly important, what is actually hurting him. 

Travis can play along. He can ask how deep the pool was or what breeds the dogs are, what they ate for dinner and what cut the steak was. Whether or not Richie lives in one of the sprawling subdivisions Travis sees every time they fly into Florida. Perfect rows of beige stucco with retention pond centers. 

Travis likes Florida, he was drafted here. He can remember the way the Everglades push against the highway and how standing at the doors of the BB&T Center felt like the halfway point between two worlds. He was here once with Lawson, and Matt, and Mcdavid. All those guys who were supposed to be something, and the few that did. 

The heavy weight of Lawson’s arm around his neck as he babbled about his fall in draft position. The thick canvas of fresh jerseys. Lawson’s red and blue and yellow, his the same orange as always. The Marlins game and the swamps and the boats with the fans on the back and Eichel and Hanifin and Strome. All the years since, and how Travis has proved that he’s good enough, that he belonged with those guys. The ones he’s surpassed and the ones he’ll never catch, but he’s not sure he’d even want to. 

Time stands still, stifled by an unfamiliar humidity. 

He tells Jeff, “I was drafted here,” but all at once it feels so unfamiliar and unimportant. 

He needs, suddenly, Jeff to spit out whatever’s bothering him. The silence and the heat is choking him. 

“Richie’s… Mike is engaged.” Jeff’s tone is final and flat. There’s nothing Travis can say to that to make it better or less or anything besides what it is. 

“Oh?”

“Yea.”

Silence for a beat, and Jeff picks at the sweating label of his beer. “I’m okay, actually. I thought about this before, and I was sure it would feel as though the world was ending. But it doesn’t. It just is.”

“It feels,” Carts pauses, gaze heavy on Travis. “It feels lessened now. I spent years wanting Richie so desperately. Everything that happened, I was convinced it was fate. I thought the universe wanted us together. And after LA and the waivers and the Caps, I thought the universe wanted us apart. I thought it was fate that we would always be too little, too late.”

“And now?”

“And now – now, I just feel less. It’s not the same urgency as before. I don’t feel like the world will end if we aren’t together.”

That’s. That’s a lot for Travis to take in. He needs to do something with his hands, but drinking seems pointless and his hair is still neat and clean from the week in St. Louis. There’s nothing to do but take in Jeff’s words and hope they don’t chew him up and spit him out. 

“That probably doesn’t make sense, but…” Jeff shrugs easily and swallows down a lasting sip. 

“No, its -” Travis pauses. He thinks of Lawson and the burning, aching heart of his teenage years. He thinks of all the times he mapped the distance between Kingston and Ottawa or Kingston and Sarnia. The way it felt to wrap his arms around Lawson after their first NHL game against each other and how the weight had inexplicably been lightened. 

The way it felt to love and to hold something as precious as that in his hands and to feel whole by his wanting, to feel embarrassingly human and be happy about it. 

He remembers the butterflies and the teenage love, but it’s distant now. He doesn’t want how he used to want and he doesn’t ache as he used to ache. He thinks he knows what Jeff is saying, to love someone for so long in a certain way, and to find peace with it. To move on, to move forward. 

It’s not letting go, per se, but it’s something which cannot and will not be ignored. 

“I think I get it,” Travis tells him. 

“I’ll be fine,” Jeff shrugs, the bottle beside him now empty. Travis pushes his across the smooth wood of the table. 

“You don’t have to be.”

Jeff doesn’t answer, but he knows. Travis knows that he knows, that he’ll be there. 

It seems pointless at this point, but for all his attempts at sleuthing, TK has never asked: “What’s Mike like?”

Carts doesn’t pour his drink on him or throw a punch, so Travis figures it was an okay question to ask. 

“Richie’s kind of like you, from what Nolan says. He’s a country boy. God awful fashion sense, and horrible with the phone. He always told me he was happiest when he’d fuck off back to Kenora to hunt and fish. He’s a bit of a mountain man at times. He used to pretend to hate the playoff beards, but he alway secretly enjoyed it.”

Jeff smiles to himself as he talks. He isn’t sad, but his time is soft. There’s a look of concentration etched on his face. Travis gets it; it’s weird to boil someone you know nearly every insignificant detail about down to a few points. 

“He loves dogs, clearly. When we had Arnold, we’d go on these lengthy night time walks. The beaches would have cleared out for the most part by then, and he’d let Arnie pick a direction. We’d walk for nearly forty minutes one way, then slowly find our way back.”

That’s. More domestic than TK had expected. 

“When I was in Columbus,” Jeff sighs. “I was such a piece of shit. I hated it there. I was injured and miserable. I missed Philadelphia and I missed Richie. He’d call me every day, to the point where it was annoying.” Carts mouth moves on its own accord, like his body wants to smile at the thought alone. 

“He’d make tell himself something good that happened to me that day, even if it was just that a good rerun of Seinfeld was on earlier. He wouldn’t hang up until I came up with something.”

“That’s…” TK doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. 

“I know.” Jeff shrugs. “I think he took that technique from a self help book or the Oprah show, probably. But, it helped. He was always surprising me like that.”

Jeff snatches the remainder of TK’s beer and drinks the rest away. “Enough about ancient history. There’s a snickers on the mini bar and a colorized World War II doc calling my name.”

Travis flags down the bartender. If Jeff spilled his guts about his decade long repressed, star crossed lovers drama, the least TK can do is pick up the tab. Travis doesn’t care about what Jeff said earlier, he can’t let Carts go through at least four stages of grief and pay for their overpriced IPAs. It’s just rude. 

“You’re worse than Pat,” Travis laughs. “Alright, old man, drinks on me. Let’s go.”

<><>

Travis nabs the seat beside Provy on the ride home and ignores his complaints about how he wanted to sit with  _ other _ Travis. It’s annoying and Ivan is a brat and a pest but he can see Nolan and Jeff’s heads bent together in conversation. The lightness of Nolan’s laugh is making TK’s face do dumb things. 

“Disgusting,” Ivan tells him before putting in his headphones to watch like, another Will Ferrel movie. Travis hates and loves him at the same time.

<><>

Patty buys him coffee the morning after they land in Philly. The look Travis shoots him asks  _ what’s this for? _ But Nolan just shrugs, smile soft and genuine as he does so. 

<><>

Travis doesn’t want to admit it, but he gets lonely when he goes home. He doesn’t know what to do about it because the one time he tried actually talking out these feelings to Lawson, he just sent back a link to Rich & Sad by Post Malone, which like, wasn’t completely inaccurate. And is an acceptable non country song. But whatever. 

He can’t get a dog because of said living alone and said frequent travel out of the state and country. He could get a cat, but fuck that. Maybe he’ll get some beta fish or a raccoon. Hartsy sent him a link to an Instagram video a few weeks ago about a dude who domesticated a raccoon. It didn’t look like a half bad life if Travis is being honest. 

He downloads Animal Crossing and friends Kevin instead because that’s easier and less expensive and potentially damaging to his new flooring. 

He virtually fishes away his sadness. It’s called coping. 

<><>

Patty drives them home after dinner at Jeff’s a few days later. They play Carolina at the Farg the next night and it hasn’t been a bad season, but Travis is so deeply tired in every way. 

“Nice weather tonight.” Nolan’s fiddling with the heat settings and the radio and anything in sight. 

“Sure,” Travis agrees. 

“Pretty crisp.” 

Travis pinches the bridge of his nose. He loves Nolan, but right now he just wants him to spit out whatever’s on his mind. They’ve already discussed the traffic and the probability construction will end on time and if that bright light in the sky is part of Orion’s Belt or a planet or maybe just a large, slow plane. He doesn’t think he can take listening to Patty refer to the quality of air as _surprisingly_ _crisp_ for five more minutes. 

“Do you think the show’s right? About the —” he waves his hand not on the wheel in a motion often used by Travis instead. “The soulmates and afterlife stuff.”

“Oh.” That’s a loaded question. Travis  _ has _ thought of it, not that he wants to exactly admit to Nolan why he’s thought of it so frequently. “What do you think?”

It’s a non-answer, but Nolan lets it slide. 

“Who wouldn’t want that to be real?” His eyes are set on the road before them, but the light is red and the color casts warmly across Nolan’s face as he speaks. 

“There’s gotta be someone out there.” Travis half shrugs. “I mean, there’s like, what, a billion people-”

“—7 billion—”

“Semantics — there’s a shit ton of people in the world and any of them would be stupid not to want to get up on that.” 

“It freaks me out,” Patty admits. His voice is soft and careful as the words tumble out. “I’m happy here, but I can’t stop thinking about how there could be thousands of versions of our lives out there.”

Travis remembers what Nolan said to him that morning in Sea Isle City as the morning light covered them both. _It’s still us._ _In every lifetime we’d still be us._

“How do I know that I’m the best me? Or even just an okay version of myself? There could be a thousand me’s out there, probably doing better than I am.”

Nolan doesn’t have to say it, but Travis knows what he’s really saying. There could be versions of him that are better, faster, stronger. Versions of him that went first overall, that didn’t suffer the injuries; versions of him that made the team substantially  _ better _ , as if it’s all up to him. There could be a Nolan out there lifting thirty-five pounds of shining metal above his head as he skates a tight loop across a rink. There could be a Nolan just like the one before Travis, eyes bright and searching, hand tucked familiarly with his —. 

Travis swallows around the weight of those words. “You’d still be you.”

“Maybe it’s stupid.”

“Nol, c’mon.” TK’s body moves before his brain does, one hand wrapping securely around Pat’s right wrist. “It’s not stupid. Nothing you could say to me is stupid.”

“I think it’d be nice. Having a soulmate or someone to be with. Forever and eternity.”

Nolan flushes deeply and Travis still has his hand on him, can feel Nolan’s pulse jumping where his fingers are tucked against the inside of his wrist. 

They’re in the driveway to Travis’ house before he realizes it. Nolan’s eyes are dark and searching across the center console. It would be too easy to write this off and make a joke like anyone would expect him to. But Nolan isn’t anyone and the steadfast focus posed upon Travis is affecting him in ways he hadn’t expected. 

“You’ve got someone out there,” Travis tells him.  _ You’ve got me _ , he wants to say. “Forever and eternity.”

Travis has coaxed hundreds of smiles and laughs out of Nolan — loud, head tipped back in tipsy delight ones, slyly private ones, reluctant grins — but here in his car, covered by the waxy glow of street lights, no smile has ever felt so important. He loves him, Travis thinks. 

He loves him, he knows it. 

<><>

February drags on, and they win more than they lose, but their spot in the standings isn’t secure. One bad bounce, one fanned shot and they’ve slipped out of a playoff spot. It’s frustrating and leaving Travis more irritated than usual. 

Lawson calls every week and babbles about his girlfriend and their dog and how their dog has an Instagram. He’s amidst another lecture about TK’s old man resistance to social media when the idea smacks Travis square in the face. 

“Law, shut up.”

“Fuck you, no. Wait, why?”

“I think,” Travis regrets this already somewhat. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I haven’t mentioned it, but now I think I need to mention it or I might lose my mind.”

“Oo-kay?”

TK pinches the bridge of his nose. Law’s such a dumbass. 

“I think I love Patty. Or, like, I know I do, but I don’t wanna say that Incase this all backfires and blows up in my face.”

“Dude.”

“I know.”

“ _ Dude _ .”

At least Lawson doesn’t laugh. 

“And, okay.” This is what Travis is bracing himself for. “I think he feels that way, too. We haven’t explicitly talked about it, but it’s there. He knows, he has to know.”

“So, what? What’re you waiting for?”

That’s as good a question as any. 

<><>

Nolan follows Travis home after their next practice. They leave for Boston the next day, and as a general rule, Travis is a mess of a human and is out of groceries other than ketchup, soy sauce, and some chocolates shoved deep in the back of his freezer. 

Pats orders them food, hardly even consulting Travis because “I know what you like, dumbass.”

And he does, which is equal parts infuriating and endearing. 

They eat Chinese food on the couch and stack take out containers across the coffee table. The Toronto skyline puzzle, half finished, is still occupying the dining room table. 

Nolan spends the night. Again. His mouth opens on a loud yawn and his joints crack as he stretches on the couch. He doesn’t even ask this time, just slides to the guest room and drags his hoodie and team issued shirt over his head and off his body. 

“This okay?” He asks innocently when TK just stares. 

He swallows once and doesn’t bother regaining composure. “Sure,” Travis tells him dryly. 

He has trouble sleeping that night thinking about Pat on the other side of the wall. 

<><>

The season ends in a horribly predictable clusterfuck. They don’t go out with a bang, and it’s barely even a whimper. 

It’s not a sweep, but it’s close. They only pick up one win in the first round and then they’re out, and Travis is expected to pack up his house and clean out his locker and head North before the wound has even scabbed over. 

He hasn’t talked to Nolan still. He said he wanted honesty, he said he wanted to stop dancing around what they both know is there, but — his body  _ hurts _ . His knees and shoulder and even his fingers ache. The beat of his heart is heavy in his chest, lugging him around like a dead weight. 

He pushed it off to focus on making the playoffs and then they were there. They were on the brink of greatness, and it ended in the blink of an eye. 

Travis had a pair of goals, an assist or two even, but what good does that do now? What difference does it make?

He knows what they say about him on the ice, okay? Travis knows people think he’s mouthy and nonstop and angry. But it stays at the rink, usually. He’s not mad now, not exactly. But there’s a frustration set into himself that he can’t shake. 

The silence in his house feels too big. He’s worried if he spends another minute alone that the silence will eat him whole. 

<><>

He calls Nolan. (Obviously). 

<><>

Forty-five minutes later there’s the too loud click of a key in a lock and heavy footsteps leading from the entryway to the kitchen. Nolan’s got beers in one hand and pizza in the other. The look on his face is hesitant and deeply sad. Travis loves him so much.

“There better not be pineapple on that,” he says instead. 

<><>

Jeff, Pat tells him, is hanging around for a few more weeks. He’ll go out to Sea Isle City and fish and tan for a bit. 

“He talked about going to LA, meeting up with some of those guys. Tiffoli and Tanner, I guess.” Nolan picks at his crust as he talks. 

“Kevin is going back to Boston for a family reunion, and I got invited.”

“Oh,” Travis answers stupidly. “Are you going?”

Nolan looks at him now, eyes searching as he does. “I don’t think so. I wanted to stay around here. At least for a while.”

“That’s good.” Travis really needs to work on his brain to mouth filter. 

“Yeah?” Nolan’s eyes are so clear and his face so open with honesty that it stuns Travis for a second. 

“Really good,” he clarifies. “I’m gonna re-tile my bathroom and have to stick around for that.”

“Okay?”

“Also,” Travis blurts out “I think I’m in love with you. And I don’t want to spend my whole life worrying if this is the right thing or if I missed my shot. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone and empty and afraid to be happy, to be afraid to let myself have the things that will make me happy.”

Travis takes one last gulping breath.

“I think you’re one of those things. And maybe you don’t feel the same way, maybe you aren’t like me in all the ways I hoped you were. And maybe this doesn’t matter, like, cosmically. At all. But I’m tired of overthinking so much. I want to be happy. And I want you to be happy with me. I don’t think that’s stupid, or out of line, or unforgivable, I just want --”

Nolan surges up so quickly that Travis barely processes the quick press of lips.

“You talk too much,” Nolan smiles.

“I-” Travis starts, but no words follow.

“Are you actually speechless?”

“No!” Travis gawks. 

“You seem speechless.”

“I’m not. Really, I promise.”

Nolan opens his mouth to taunt him further and Travis decides he’s had enough. The next kiss is softer, slower than before. 

“You need to tell me how you feel,” Travis says after a minute. “That’s definitely not chill, but I’m also definitely not chill. And I really need to know so I don’t end up moving back here in ten years with a sad old dude heart.”

“What?”

Travis narrows his eyes. “Don’t change the subject.”

“I don’t even know what we’re talking about, Trav.”

“Feelings. Yours, specifically.” He resists a finger wave with that one. 

“You’re so annoying, I can’t believe I love you—”

“You’re the annoying one, wait — say that again.”

Nolan is flushed a dull red, but he’s smiling ear to ear. “Dumbass,” Nolan mutters and leans back in. 

“I love you,” he says again. And for a while, nothing else matters. 

  
  


<><>

Travis wakes up to an empty bed. 

There’s Nolan’s shoes — laces permanently untied — at the foot of the bed, though. And this small thing eases whatever took a momentary hold of his heart. 

In the living room, Travis can see straight through to the kitchen and dining room. Nolan’s head is down, his body leaned close and intently over the dining room table. He doesn’t see Travis, but TK can see him. He can see the way Nolan’s tongue is poking out in concentration, the borrowed shirt stretched across his arms, and how his hair is messily pulled back with the scrunchie Travis took from the media event. 

The wall so long built up around Travis’ heart starts to crumble. It’s not as scary as he thought it would be. The familiarity of Nolan is overwhelmingly good. There’s a thousand and one ways this could go wrong, but all of these reasons seem insignificant right now. 

“You finished,” Travis breaks the silence after a second. 

Nolan looks up quickly, cheeks coloring as he does so. Before him is the same puzzle from all those months ago. Travis can see the CN tower put together and the pinks and blues of the sky. 

“I was just waiting for the right moment.”

Travis stands beside him and lets himself be wrapped up in Nolan’s arms and the feeling of it all. It’s not overwhelming or all consuming, and he doesn’t feel like he’ll die if they aren’t together. 

But— it’s nice. Nolan is quiet and good and sturdy behind him, and Travis lets himself enjoy it. He lets himself embrace the moment and not dwell on what could go wrong. He knows where he is and he hopes for what’s ahead: forever and eternity. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have a twitter @galchenyukz if ur interested


End file.
